Fallen angel
by Pepperrex
Summary: Lillie Simmons lives in Burnside, a middle-of-nowhere town where absolutely nothing happens. But while investigating a recent string of unusual power outages she finds something she never expected to, which flips her life upside down.


Burnside, New South Whales, Australia, 2007, November 14th, 10:13 pm

Lillie Simmons, a seemingly ordinary girl was sitting in a leather, red booth seat - that she thinks her ass might have welded to - as she listened to her best friend, Charlotte rant about her 'sad and saggy, microwaved chips'. Tonight was an important night for Lillie, she had just finished the gruelling task of making it through 12 years of painstaking education, and was joyously celebrating the end of her high school education. Lillie was currently at her towns local pub which was a few roads down from her house, it wasn't the best place, but it was all there was in her little hometown of Burnside. The flickering lights, stuffy air, gum under the tables and outdated furniture wasn't ideal but the cozy atmosphere and friendly staff made up for it.

Lillie looked past Charlottes brown eyes and to the small TV that was mounted onto the wall behind her.

Eyes narrowing as she squinted at what looked to be playing one of the numerous guest/talk shows, two people were talking to each other as a clip of the 'Christmas star' as the strange ship that was shot down on Christmas had been dubbed, was played in the background. At the bottom of the screen there was scrolling box with text in it that read 'Are the governments hiding more than we thought? Renowned conspiracist Robert Goodley features in tonight's episode of The Later Show'

"All these conspiracy shows and the wackos on them do is make up stupid hoaxes, they're just winding people up to make a profit"

Charlotte said, and whispered 'twats' under her breath as she finished her mini rant. Charlotte must have seen that Lilles attention was elsewhere and seen the TV she was looking at "I mean 'aliens' that's ridiculous" she stated in a mocking tone, making air quotes as she sarcastically said the word 'aliens'. "What about that flying star ship thing on Christmas, that was pretty real-looking." Lillie replied to Charlotte exasperatedly, she wholeheartedly believed that there were aliens out there, not to mention all the proof that had been trying to take over their planet. And besides, it was unreasonable to think that earth was the only planet with life. The odds just didn't add up.

Lillie turned her head around to look back at her friend and see that she was being given a disbelieving and slightly judgy look "You seriously believe in aliens and all that crap? It was probably just some military-government thing." Charlotte retorted while picking at her chips and continued to stare at Lillie with narrowed eyes.

"uhhh well, I-I umm" Lillie stuttered nervously, " I just don't think we're the one planet with life, there is a lot of evidence pointing to there being aliens and, anyway, if space is infinite doesn't that mean infinite possibilities?" Lillie rushed out -she really hated confrontation- and pretended not to notice Charlottes sassy eye roll

"Whatever nerd, you do you."

Lillie turned away back to the TV with a huff and a frown, she really did like Charlotte but she is really stubborn and sticks by what she thinks as much as the gum sticks to the undersides of these dingy pub tables. Which is a lot, like A LOT.

And sometimes it can be really annoying when she doesn't take anyone else's view into account, right now is a very fine example.

"So, Robert-" the host of the shows questioning voice blared out of the tv "-you've got quite a few theories relating to aliens, now we all know that something is out there after that spacecraft crashed into Big Ben, the giant ship that managed to hypnotise a third of the world and the recent Christmas incident last year, but you claim that there may have been more alien contact that we may not know about due to government coverups?" The finely dressed, TV host said addressing his guest who leaned forward in his chair and looked at the camera "Yes, thank you Ryan, there is so much evidence suggesting that we aren't being told everything, if not anything, by the the worlds governments. Just remember back to when we were supposedly contacted by aliens for the first time, the giant spaceship that appeared out of nowhere and started controlling people. 'Somehow' that ship was shot out of the sky by some sort of extraterrestrial weapon!" The guest speaker spoke excitedly getting louder and louder bordering on yelling.

Cleary passionate about this subject, Lillie thought and took a sip of a ginger beer that Charlotte had bought for her earlier. Another clip played behind the two men, this one with significantly less quality, mostly pixels and blurs but you could still make out the fore-mentioned ship getting blown up by a bizarre giant green laser.

"Since when have we had that sort of technology? Why have we not know about it until that moment? And most importantly what other destructive weapons and technology are out there, and why don't we know about it! We have a right to know!" The man finished his speech looking directly into the camera which was showing the determined look on his face.

The talk show was then interrupted by the bright colours of an advertisement for some sort of cleaning product.

Annoyed that the show had been interrupted so abruptly Lillie turned back to Charlotte"So-" Lillie drawled trying to find a topic of conversation and picking the first one that came to mind "-hows work going, have you found anything yet?"

Charlotte had been looking for work a while now but hadn't been able to find anything that was in town.

"Yeah it's going really good actually I've managed to land an interview at a cafe not too far out of town" Charlotte replied enthusiastically after swallowing a mouthful of food, "That's so good! Hopefully you get this one. Just give them some of your charm and you'll have it in the bag!" Lillie replied with a big smile on her face and a wink.

it was about time Charlotte found somewhere to work, but living in a small town did limit your options substantially.

"Yeah I hope so, I really need to start saving money so I can get out of this shitty town. It's what's dragging me down." Charlotte sighed out dramatically while twirling her blond hair around her finger. " I want to travel the world and see what's out there, all we've got in this place is a shabby pub that belongs in the 1980's and a few crappy shops. Anywhere other than here is going to be a luxury."

"It's not that bad." Lille replies trying to lighten charlottes mood before she went into a full on rant mode. "Oh yeah? What's so good about it then?" Charlotte speedily shot back

"ummm, the people?" Lillie said trying to defend the small town she's grown up in, some of the small shops really did have a lot of charm if you got to know the owners and the town was a quite tight knit community as well.

Charlotte rolled her eyes and snorted "Yeah if you like grumpy old people, all they do is complain about 'too much noise' and" —

The two kept the conversation going for a while until Lillie felt a buzzing in her pocket, ignoring whatever Charlotte was gossiping about at the moment, she quickly reached in an pulled out her battered iPhone. It was quite worn after being dropped a little too may times over the years. Lillie pressed the home button and looked at the slightly cracked screen, illuminated and showing the time, 11:32, shit , I needed to be home at 11:00 by the latest!

Frantically typing in her phone password of four zeros and unlocking it. She was greeted with a tidal wave of notifications, two missed calls, both with voicemails, and a text message from a very angry parent.

The text message had been sent around fifteen minutes ago and simply read " get home now"

Feeling a growing sense of dread Lillie swiped the message away and opened her voicemails.

"Hey your not even listening! I was sayi"— Charlotte squawked but was interrupted by Lille bringing her finger up to her face and miming a 'Shushing' motion.

She then pressed the first voicemail, bringing it up to her ear she braced herself.

"Lillie"— came her mother's voice from the phones speakers "—I shouldn't have to remind you that you needed to be home five minutes ago, it's dangerous to be out so late. I expect you to be home soon." Cringing at her mothers dangerously sweet tone and passive aggressiveness she hesitantly pressed the last voicemail

"LILLIE! If you are not coming home right now I'll be locking the door and you can sleep on the streets tonight!"

...

"Wow. Even I heard that, she's pissed" Said Charlotte with raised eyebrows. Thanks for stating the obvious, Charlotte.

"I've got to go, I was supposed to be home at 11:00" Lille rushed while scooting herself up and out of the booth. She slid her phone back in her pocket and grabbed her bag from under the table where it had been resting on the floor by her feet.

She unzipped the bag and reached in pulling out her purse, she grabbed a twenty dollar note and handed it to Charlotte "That's for my drink, thanks for the night out Charlotte!" Lillie rushed out not wanting to seem rude but having to go soon If she wanted to sleep inside tonight. Charlotte plucked the money out of her hand and stuffed it in her pocket

"No worries, I'll phone you and we can organise another time to hang out."

Nodding Lillie said goodbye and started walking towards the door when the lights started to flicker slightly and the tv turned off. The flickering got worse until the lights turned off completely along with everything else electrical in the building, before long the whole bar was shrouded in darkness.

Squinting to see in the darkness and looking around to make sure she wouldn't trip on her way out she heard someone mutter "Great another power outage"

Lillie agreed wholeheartedly. There has been an unusually large amount of power outages lately, most people just summed it up to the hot weather that came with living in Australia . And sure that could have been true but it just didn't seem right, the same time last year there was hardly any power outages but now we were getting them all around town as often as each week. And there hadn't even been too many hot days, certainly not enough to have constant power outages. Lillie remembered back to three nights ago when she, her mum and her little brother had been forced to light their house with candles because of a power outage that had occurred around 7:00pm, it had lasted almost 5 hours and all the frozen food had spoiled due to being defrosted and needed to be replaced, and then there was the problem of trying to get her hyperactive brother to bed.

It had been a stressful night to say the least.

Lillie broke out of her thoughts as she started to briskly walk out of the bar, trying her hardest to avoid bumping into tables and not exactly succeeding but eventually getting to the the glass double doors. Pushing open the left door she was hot the chilly night air, her house was a little over five minutes away from the pub, if she walked very fast.

Stepping out of the pub she began to walk in the direction of her house, watching her step so she doesn't trip on any rocks laying in the ground in the darkness. As she walked she was careful to watch her surroundings, her mother wasn't wrong. Even if it was a small town it was dangerous to be out anywhere this late, especially in the darkness of the blackout.

Zoning about a bit Lillie continued to walk. The blackouts were starting to become quite the regular occurrence over the last few weeks, there could be something wrong with the towns power supply or the wires. But if that was the case it probably would of been on the news or at least in the local paper, but there had been nothing addressing it. Lillie was broken out of her thoughts by a slight rumbling and looked up, trying to find the source of the sound, seeing that she was approaching the small local cemetery. Goosebumps began to rise on her arms, and it wasn't from the cold. To be honest with herself it was always quite scary walking past it, and the lack of light from the power outage only exemplified that. There were old, black, rusted and lichen covered wrought iron fences topped with spikes that surrounded the cemeteries perimeters, beyond that were rows and rows of headstones old and new, that cast eerie shadows across the floor. Most of them were covered in moss and water whole place gave her the heebie jeebies. As she was walking past it the rumbling got louder and she saw two bright beams of light pointing at her from a little up ahead on the side of the road. As she got closer she realised it was a car, with its headlights left on.

It's probably someone just visiting the cemetery Lillie thought to herself as she cautiously edged closer to the car, though it was a bit late to be visiting. Now standing on the footpath next to where the car was parked she took a closer look. It was a black four door Toyota on the smaller side, the engine was still running and the driver side door was opened all, the way out, the door itself was looking a little worse for wear. The glass window was smashed in and there was a large dint in the metal of the door and the rear view mirror was missing. There were even a few long scratches that had taken of the paint work along it. Lillie looked around, trying to find the owner of the car but no one was around. Lillie couldn't even see anyone else out at all, turning around and squinting into the cemetery all she saw was shadows and headstones.

If there wasn't an outage and the streetlights had been on or if the cars headlights were angled slightly more to the right she might have seen the lone bag splayed out carelessly on the cemetery floor, next to a headstone, open with all its possessions strewn about on the moss covered ground.

Whilst staring into the cemetery Lillie felt a sudden strange prickling sensation. Her hair started to stand on end and her back straightened. It was awfully similar to the feeling you got when you were being watched.

Narrowing her eyes and spinning around Lille looked down the street again, there was nothing there. Not even any animals.

Now that she thinks about it, it was awfully quiet, no crickets, no birds not any other people. Nothing. It was like all life had just vanished.

Lillie was hit with a sudden pang of fear and unease, she started to feel queasy, call it intuition or paranoia but something was definitely wrong. The feeling of being watched was getting worse, she could almost feel the eyes burning through her back. She wasn't alone, and whoever or whatever was with her wasn't friendly. She heard movement coming from behind her, the sound of feet hitting the floor. She was scared to look around, didn't want to see what could be behind her. She was about to run when her head suddenly started to throb and she felt a sharp pain in the front of her skull, almost like she was being jabbed by a needle or something similar. Along with the pain Lillie felt a strong sense of intrusion, something you would feel if someone broke into your house and looked through all your belongings. Lille starting to become overwhelmed by her senses and starts to hyperventilate while trying to will herself to start moving, but her legs wouldn't obey.

No matter how hard she tried to move, her body stayed as still and stiff as a statue, she felt frozen despite wanting to be anything but. Whether it was her own fear or something else that was stopping her from retreating It didn't have the same affect on her rapid breathing.

As her panic got worse her throat started to close up and her skin felt clammy from the cold sweat that was breaking out over her body, the pain in her head was getting worse and worse the more she tried to move and was starting to feel like a full blown migraine. Shutting her eyes and clutching at her head to try relieve the crippling pain, she could hear more movement behind her. The sound of metal bars bending behind her. But It was impossible to think with the jarring pain in her head. As she shakily heaved in breaths of oxygen that were starting to feel thinner and thinner with each panicked breath Lille pushed through the pain in her head and felt a sudden rush of strength, she tightened the hold on her bag to an iron grip and suddenly broke out of whatever frozen trance she was in and started sprinting down the street towards her home.

Her headache suddenly leaving her as well as the intrusive sensation along with it. As Lille ran home with tears running down her cheeks and flinging off onto the floor, her panicked breaths, shoes slapping against the rough cement pavement and the slowly fading rumbling of the abandoned cars engine being the only sounds the whole way home.

But Lille didn't once look behind her, not at the abandoned car with its engine still running, headlights on and the owners belongings scattered on the seats and floor next to the car, and not at the old cemetery with its mossy, cracked headstones and rusted fences. And as she ran home out of the halo of flickering light that the cars headlights produced, she failed to notice the clawed hand that, she narrowly avoided, poised to strike, that had been emerging from the darkness behind her.


End file.
